The War: Namir
by Eponine3
Summary: In an alternate dimension, the war of Magneto's dreams and Xavier's nightmares is dawning.


The War; Namir  
  
The cat-girl crouched low in the doorway, watching the gang run past, yelling in anticipation of the hunt. They couldn't see her, the girl's sleek black fur helping her to blend almost perfectly with the shadows. She hissed softly, fangs bared. The boys held knives and bricks. It seemed now that all the world held knives and bricks and the weapons all meant for her. Her emerald cats-eyes glinted in the moonlight. The last boy hurried past, slower than the rest, perhaps because he was so laden with missiles. Hate filled her, partially because of her empathic ability to feel the gang's, and she leapt for the boy.  
  
His yell of surprise was cut short by the cat-girl's claw across his throat. Sensing him dead then, she jumped off him. The gang was turning back at their fallen comrade's cry. They saw her and pointed as she ran for an alleyway. She sprang up the fire ladder and bounded onto the roof, peering over the edge at her pursuers. They threw their bricks at her, but missed. She hissed one last time and disappeared over the edge, running across the roofs of the city, using her tail as balance. Finally, she stopped on one. She curled up on a corner, wrapping her tail around her. She sniffed the cold night air one last time and, smelling no danger, went to sleep.  
  
  
  
She woke in the morning feeling a slight breeze ruffling her fur and she growled irritably. She had been dreaming of warmth and home. She nearly remembered a place like that. And something else.  
  
"Name," she said aloud. Then she flinched at the unfamiliar sound her voice made. "Name," she said again, "Need a name." She liked this way of making sense from sound. It had been a very long time since she had done it and it brought back more feelings of warmth and home. "Namir," she said strongly. "Nickname!" The cat-girl giggled in joy. She remembered a little! Words were good, they could be used to. get things. Other people said words in stores and they got food. "Food." Her stomach growled. "Namir... needs... food." She tried out her speech and found it good.  
  
She swung down onto the street level and kept to the shadows made by the early morning light, careful not to bump people as they hurried about, caring only about themselves and their own business. She slipped into a coffee shop that was nearly empty and walked up to the counter hesitantly. The boy behind it stared at her furred face. Namir tried to ignore it.  
  
"Namir needs food...And...."  
  
"Y-you're one of them, aren't you?" The boy stumbled backward, fear written plainly across his face.  
  
"W-what d-do y-you m-mean?" Namir asked, the still awkward words faltering in her confusion.  
  
"A... A mutant," he practically yelled.  
  
"N-no, just Namir!" she yelled back and ran out of the shop. On the street, people stared at and recoiled from the black-furred, fanged, tailed figure that hurtled past them. In a blind dash, Namir ran on all fours, the most natural position for her.  
  
"Namir, Namir, Namir, Namir, NamirNamirNamir..." she repeated to herself.  
  
"Stop it!" someone nearby yelled. Something hard was brought down on her head and then there was darkness.  
  
  
  
Namir was standing before she was wholly awake. She was in a small cell. Across it was a boy...  
  
"Like Namir..." she whispered. He was covered in blue fur. He had a long blue tail, fangs, and slightly pointed ears. She walked unsteadily to him and touched his cheek. It was real fur. "Like Namir..." she whispered again.  
  
The boy stirred and opened his eyes. They were yellow and unnatural. He jumped up.  
  
"Who are you?" he asked with an accent she couldn't quite place.  
  
"Namir... You are like Namir!" she burst out, unable to contain her excitement.  
  
"Yeah... Where are we?"  
  
"Namir... knows not." In her elation of finding someone like her, Namir had completely ignored her surroundings. To her surprise, the boy was shrugging.  
  
"It doesn't matter. Come here."  
  
Hesitating slightly, Namir walked toward him. He grabbed her hand and closed his eyes. Before she could jerk her hand away, they were outside, the air smelling slightly of brimstone. She jumped away then, slightly afraid and now very wary of the boy.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked. In the back of her mind, she realized that she was speaking without any difficulty now. Alarm bells went off behind her. She turned and saw a cement compound.  
  
"Doesn't matter now. Just run!" he yelled, grabbing her arm again and running with her. When he was sure she followed, he dropped her arm and fell to all fours. He runs like Namir too! Namir thought. They ran together for an indeterminable time. After a while, though, she sniffed and found the scent of danger, nearby.  
  
"Boy!" she yelled. He stopped. A whirring sound came from nearby. He threw himself at her and they tumbled against a tree. "What-?" she asked, but he put his hand to her mouth. She noticed that it only had three fingers. Pressed into a hollow in the tree's upraised roots, hidden by the night, the searching motorbikes passed by them.  
  
The boy stood up and reached out one of his three-fingered hands to Namir. She stood on her own. "What is your name?"  
  
"Kurt Wagner... Or Nightcrawler. Whatever you prefer." He started walking again.  
  
"Where are Kurt and Namir going?" she asked him, walking beside him. Kurt set a steady pace through the thick woods.  
  
"First, we're going to get out of these woods. Then I'll worry about getting home." He looked at her. "Do you have a home?"  
  
"Home? ... No. Namir has no home."  
  
Kurt sighed. "Alright then. I live with mutants. You may live with us as well, as long as you follow our rules."  
  
They walked in silence for a time.  
  
"Then is Namir... Are Kurt and Namir... mutants? Is that what Kurt and Namir are called?"  
  
"Yes. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Namir has never heard the term before."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"What did those people want with Kurt and Namir back there?" Namir asked after a period of awkward silence.  
  
"I don't know. Experimentation, most likely, or something similar."  
  
They walked the rest of the night. Near dawn, they came to a small field of corn. At the edge was a typical American farmhouse, complete with red barn and horses in a pasture.  
  
Kurt slung his arm around Namir's waist. This time, however, she knew what would happen and flipped backward.  
  
"What?" Kurt asked.  
  
"Namir does not like that," she said, backing away.  
  
"I was only going to teleport us to the farmhouse. We wouldn't have to walk the rest of the way."  
  
"Kurt may teleport himself. Namir will walk." She strode into the cornfield and heard Kurt sigh and enter behind her.  
  
"Fine, have it your way," he said, "Stubborn," Kurt added, muttering.  
  
"Namir will pretend she did not hear that." 


End file.
